The Promise of Christmas

Please turn with me to Isaiah chapter 9, page 573 in the P Bible. We begin our Advent series. Today we'll be looking at the promise of Christmas. Isaiah chapter 9 verses 6 through 7, this prophecy came some 700 years before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given. And the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, you are the star out of Jacob, the hopes and fears of all the years, the dear desire of every heart. You're what we really want, even though we try to find you in so many different places and so many false gods. And we've been let down time and time again. Holy Spirit, fill this place and open our eyes and draw our hearts to the matchless beauty and power and glory of Jesus Christ. Let us believe that it is true, and the joy that comes from knowing that it's true, that it's really true, or there are people here today that are discouraged, confused, hurt, and so Lord asks the minister to them through your word. Your word is able to do so many different things, to bind up and to convict, and so let your word do its perfect work in Jesus' precious name. Amen. What we just read in Isaiah chapter 9 is a promise. One of many promises throughout Scripture. The first promise of the Redeemer, the hero, the one that would come, the Messiah, the Christ. Beginning in Genesis chapter 3, that there would be a seed of the woman that would crush the seed of the serpent, and then a promise to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12, that through Abraham, though Abraham and his wife Sarah had no children, through Abraham, with the nations be blessed, that the Redeemer would come through Abraham. That a Deuteronomy chapter 18, there would be a prophet that would be raised up. He'd be the greatest prophet, the final prophet, the prophet of God, and then in 1st and 2nd Samuel, there is one king, the one that will sit on the throne of David, in Isaiah chapter 9, a child to be born. Promise after promise after promise, and that is what Christmas is about. As we hear, a little teenage girl named Mary, a poor teenage girl, a nobody named Mary singing, after an angel had come to her and told her that she would give birth to the promised one. And in her song in Luke chapter 1, she says, he has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy. He has spoken to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his offspring. Here's what Christmas is about, and Mary's telling us right here, all the prophecies, all the promises, all the covenant oaths, all the truth that's given to us in the Old Testament, has come true. Mary is saying this, he did it. The promised hero has come into this world, the promised one, Jesus Christ in a brand new way. You and I must be refreshed and renewed with the promise, because this is the only promise that matters at the end of the day. This is the only story that makes sense of your story. This is the only story that makes sense of human history. And so we're called to change our lives in light of this promise, the coming of the kingdom of God has been ushered into this world. As Martin Lloyd-Jones said, who is a pastor in the last century in England, this sums it up. What God did when he sent his son into the world is an absolute guarantee that he will do everything that he has promised to do. What God did when he sent his son into the world is an absolute guarantee to you, and to me, that he will do everything that he has promised to do. And so I want us to be overwhelmed by the promise. To de-Christmas eyes our promise, our understanding of Christmas. To take the mall out of it just for a minute. But to really ponder the importance of the promise of Jesus. Two things we're going to say. The promise is so great. It is so great. It is exactly what we wanted, what we need, beyond our wildest dreams. First, the promised one is so great. And then secondly, the promise is so near. And then third, so what? The promise is so great, folks. And the promise is so near. That's what's so great about the gospel is Jesus is so great. He's exactly what we want. It's exactly what we need. For it is so great. It's so incredibly fit for the job of saving us and He's so near. God is so much nearer to you than you think He is. And then so what, what does that mean for our life? Let's look at the first point. The promise of Christmas is so great. Look at verse 6 with me, 4 to us, a child is born to us. His son is given. And the government shall be on his shoulder A name declares the person, a name defines the character in the Old Testament. Not like the way we do names. A name in the Old Testament embodied who the person was, and especially this is true for the coming hero. Isaiah is giving us the qualifications of the Messiah for leadership. And verses 1 through 5, he is painting this wonderful picture to people who are in gloom and darkness, about to be attacked by Assyrians. You may not know a lot about the Assyrians. The Assyrians were terrifying, horrible, violent people, and they were going to attack the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and they are given this promise that light will replace darkness and gloom, that peace will replace fighting one day, and war, that hope will replace despair, and it will all come in this promised one. Some cultures call these myths. The embodiment of what we really want, right? Maybe in our modern culture, we call them fairy tales, the embodiment of our greatest desires and dreams, that we would be rescued by a prince, that we would be saved, and we would be redeemed by a hero. Why is it every single movie, every good story has us in trouble, humanity in trouble with someone rescuing us. We want stories about redemption because it's written on our souls. We call them our wildest dreams. Here's the good news about the name of this person that we're about to discuss. It is our wildest dreams, and it's also historically true. It is both miraculous and reasonable, or as CS Lewis said, it is the myth that has become fact. Listen to me today, Jesus Christ is not a fairy tale, Jesus Christ lived here, Jesus Christ moved into town, and Jesus Christ claimed over and over again that he is the one of Isaiah chapter 9. Do you believe it? Do you believe it? Let's look at the name of the one who came to save us. The first thing we hear about the promised one who is so great is that he's a wonderful counselor. The word wonderful here means in the Old Testament, it's the closest Hebrew word to the word supernatural, that is wonderful here means divine. He is unlike a human counselor. The word wonderful means this is God's brand of power, God's brand of counselor. Humans aren't like this when he says wonderful counselor. We should clue in, or the readers would have clued in, the Old Testament readers, that he's talking about someone with superhuman power, but he's not just wonderful as a counselor. He is a counselor. Now, a counselor in the ancient near East was priceless to have a counselor and be surrounded by good counsel meant the success of your kingdom. Ahaz was an example of someone in chapter 1 of this same book of Isaiah, in 126, we're told that Ahaz was an intelligent man, but he had bad counsel, and his bad counsel led to the destruction of his kingdom. And so this counselor is contrasted with all the other human fallen frail counselors. This is the divine counselor. Think of the benefits of a good counselor, someone who is an expert, that really gets at the idea, an expert. Someone who not only understands the problem, but also knows what to do about the problem, you're starting to get the idea of a wonderful counselor. Someone who understands what's going on in the muck of your life and the complexities of your life, but someone who not only understands it, he doesn't just write a dissertation about it, he actually knows how to treat it and what to do about it. There's nothing more comforting than when you're going to have a procedure done to find out that the person doing the procedure has done 3,000 of these procedures, right? That's pretty comforting, isn't it? Because he not only understands perfectly what's wrong with you, I was talking to one of my friends, whose child had a problem, and the person that he was sending this child to his dear daughter to, this person was one of the foremost experts in the world, that he not only understand exactly what was wrong with his child, but he knew exactly how to treat it. And to an infinite degree, that's what Jesus Christ as wonderful counselor is. Here's what Jesus is, wonderful counselor to the human condition, the complexities, the confusion, the problem of humanity. When he says that this one that's coming is the wonderful counselor, he is the one who is going to say things and do things that no one else has said before. Now believe in Jesus or not believe in Jesus, but you have to say that about Jesus. No one has left a mark like Jesus Christ. That what Jesus did when he came into this world as the wonderful counselor is he came to each of us down through the ages, speaking to us in the gospels, but he came to his own generation and he said, here is your problem. The problem with you is that you are unreconsiled to your king and to your creator. The problem with you is sin and it's on the inside of you, not on the outside of you. The outside you can clean up, but on the inside of you, that's what's killing you. Jesus keeps saying that over and over and over again. He's saying it to us right this very minute. That he not only can diagnose the problem, he knows exactly what to do about the problem and Jesus Christ himself is the answer to the problem. He said, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life. Can you get much more wonderful counselor than that? He told us about the kingdom. You know, that's not just Bible talk, there's a real kingdom. It's the eternal kingdom of God and this kingdom will reign forever and ever and Jesus Christ will be on the throne forever and ever and he gave his kingdom ethics and the way to live and to see the world. He said to see the world is about love. The right way to live is to give your life rather than take from others. The path of life that means something is the path of humility. He gave us that in the sermon on the mount. He's shouting us over and over. He's telling us I'm here to tell you what's wrong with you and how to live and how to find eternal life as he is giving us the picture of a wonderful counselor. He will tell you the story of your life. He will tell your condition because he is the embodiment of truth itself. That's why we should stop and listen to Jesus but Jesus said I'm also sending you a holy spirit. Well, I can't see Jesus now, Richie. So what does that mean? Mean to us now. Jesus has sent his Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God. He's very God. He is as God as the son or as the father and he has sent his Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is called what? Who? The counselor. What does the Holy Spirit do? The Holy Spirit stirs in your hearts even as I'm speaking to you. He stirs in his heart and he applies the Word of God and he divides into ways that we can't even possibly imagine through soul and through spirit. The Holy Spirit can go straight to your story and we keep putting up blockade after blockade and the Holy Spirit can break through it over and over again and the Holy Spirit comes to your most broken place and the Holy Spirit can apply the healing blood of Jesus Christ. It is supernatural but that's the wonderful counselor. He knows you better than you know yourself. He infinitely better than you know yourself and he knows what you need. You need rescue and you need hope. We don't need half saving as Jack Miller used to say. We need total saving. The wonderful counselor has come. Is that not beyond our wildest dreams? That there's one who actually understands the beginning and the end and tells us where we fit. The second thing we hear about this promise one is that he's not only the wonderful counselor. He is the mighty God. That's simply a way of saying that the one who is going to be born, the child that's going to be born, is God. This term, mighty God, the Lord of hosts, this is to describe the one and only. The God who dwells in unapproachable light, the one who was and is and is to come, is Jesus Christ. So, not only is he a wonderful counselor and perfectly able to tell us what is wrong with us and how to fix the problem, he's also perfectly strong enough to do it. He has eternal strength. We see this outside the tomb of Lazarus. You know that story. Jesus Christ, we see him as the mighty God. He's standing outside the tomb of Lazarus. And what happens? Jesus Christ weeps. Some of you that was your favorite Bible verse to memorize because it's the shortest one. Jesus wept. Do you remember that? Why does Jesus weep outside the tomb of Lazarus? Well, in our manner of speaking, it's because Jesus knew too much. Jesus heard things that we don't hear and Jesus felt things that we don't feel. Jesus felt things as the second person of the Trinity. He knew the horror of death. He knew the treachery of humanity. He knew the war that was actually going on. He himself was personally assaulted by Satan for 40 days in the desert and never gave in. That just means the temptation gets harder. So Jesus was overwhelmed by it and overwhelmed by the death of his dear friend Lazarus. He was brokenhearted. So outside this tomb, the man weeps, but that's not all he does. See, the mighty God not only perceives and sees everything and feels and knows it. He also stood outside Lazarus' tomb. He said, Lazarus, get up. Come out. You can't imagine. Can you imagine those few seconds when Jesus prays out loud so that everyone can hear? Is Lazarus going to get up? Because if Lazarus doesn't get up, folks, this is a joke. And we are to be pityed above all other people. We are pathetic, weird, religious, holiday, hungry people, but you know what happened? That man got up. That man got up. He said, Lazarus, get up and Lazarus got up. You know what that means? Why did that happen? It's because Jesus Christ is the mighty God. The one standing outside of that tomb was God and the flesh. He was the one that spoke the universe into creation and folks, the only way that you're going to be able to face tomorrow, the only way that you can face the death of the people that you love, the only way that you can face this world without despair and with courage and with hope is that you have the mighty God as your wonderful counselor. He has God in the flesh. I know it's outrageous, but it's a promise that you believe it. When Jesus Christ opened up his eyes and the dark hours, three days after he was crucified in a rich man's tomb, a borrowed tomb, his eyes were closed. You can imagine the stillness of the early morning and then boom, the eyes of Jesus of Nazareth opened up. You know what happened when his eyes opened up that day and his heart started beating again and he got up and he blew a hole in that tomb. Do you know what happened? Death died and you have no greater enemy than death and the mighty God beat death. Whom shall I fear? Isn't that what you really want to know that when you slip out of this world and the darkness of a hospital room and the people that you know that they will be ushered into the presence of the one who called Lazarus from his tomb? He is the wonderful counselor. He is the mighty God. But look at the third word. He is the everlasting Father. Now don't be confused. That doesn't mean Father in the sense of the Father's Son and the Holy Spirit and the Trinity. This is the Old Testament word for Father-like care and compassion. This is saying that Jesus Christ is Father-like with you. He is describing the personality of Jesus. He is describing how Jesus interacts in his relationships with people. Now let's stop here for a second because we have distorted views of Jesus Christ because we have seen all the terrible silly movies where Jesus Christ is this cold, emotionless figure that walks through the earth like an android. That's not what Jesus is like at all. The one who is promised is an everlasting Father. Now some of you had loving tender fathers and some of you did not. And Jesus isn't like your daddy, even the best of them. Jesus Christ is tender. In fact, Sinclair Ferguson said that in describing the prodigal son, that Jesus Christ is not describing the Father and the Father's Son and the Holy Spirit, but in the prodigal son, he is describing himself Jesus is. He's describing what he's like in relationship to sinners. And Jesus is the one who runs to you. Jesus is the one who throws a robe over you. Jesus is the one who puts a ring on your finger. Jesus is the one that throws a party because he loves you so much and so desperately that he just dots over you. Like a father does, parents, do you know what this is like? Some of you have wayward children that the kids that don't want anything to do with Jesus. Some of you are running and you just know they are going to completely wreck their lives and how out of control that you feel. But you see if that child comes back and some of you have had children come back. You know, you don't care about all that stuff. You just run to them and you want to love them and you want to forgive them because this is your child. That is the description of the way Jesus feels about you. Get all the phony images out of your mind. He's a father. He's a father like Jesus is gentle and he's tender, but he's not only tender, he's tough. There's nothing like a father in knowing that your father's tough. I remember my dad's arms felt like Popeye's arms when I was a little kid. You wanted your dad to be able to beat up anyone's dad and you were convinced that he could, because the universe would fall apart if your dad couldn't beat up another person's dad, right? Because your dad was your protector and you were a little wimp. And Jesus Christ is a father like an everlasting father. He's not only tender with you, he's tough as a shepherd, as a father who protects his children. That's the way God feels about you. He's tough, but he's not like our earthly fathers that go frail and they get smaller as they get older. And weaker, Jesus is the everlasting father. He's ever-lastingly father-like toward you. That is, folks, when we see Jesus, when we meet Jesus Christ one day, either we're going to go to be with Him or He's going to come to be with us, this is what Jesus is going to be like for eternity. Some of you have wondered, you have moody parents. Maybe you're a moody person like I am and one day you're in a great mood and the other day you're not in so great mood, Jesus Christ is not moody, that He will eternally be father-like with you. So come close to Him and talk to Him and throw your problems at Him because He's tender and he's tough. With that fourth word, Prince of Peace, that sums it all up, He is the Prince of Peace. What does that mean? First of all, it means that we have peace with God. The Jesus Christ is the Prince that brings peace with God, that first and foremost, what Jesus Christ came into this world to do. It's very clear, Genesis to Revelation, what Jesus' primary goal was was to reconcile a sinful humanity with the Holy God. I know that sounds bizarre to us, but we're not God. But the main problem with humanity is sin, and that the main problem with humanity is that sin leads to death and death and destruction, and Jesus Christ came to bring us back again to a relationship of peace. That there is this infinite gap between God and man, and Jesus Christ is the one who bridges that gap, a gap that we could never bridge. So Paul says in Romans chapter 5, verse 1, since we have justified by faith, that is we stand righteous before God, listen to this, we have peace with God. Let me say that again, because some of you just have a theological category in your mind. I know that. I've read the Westminster Confession of Faith, I've been in a Presbyterian church, we have peace with God. Let me just tell you, you should never get over that. You have peace with the holy judge of the living and the dead. You will have peace, but in Jesus Christ you have peace, and Jesus has brought you eternal peace that His cross means it is finished, it is over, you are declared righteous. Now go be in peace, now go and worship in peace, now go live in peace because you have peace with God, you have peace with God. Why? Look at the Prince of Peace came. And this objective piece that we have leads to an internal peace. And some of you are looking for that peace, folks, we are all looking for that peace, and we're all being told that we can find it here. We are all being told that we can find it with the right job, with the right spouse, with the right stuff, with the right accolade, with the right amount of money. We are all being told that we can find that peace, and folks, we all try to find it over and over again. That's what. It's like cotton candy, you know, very even cotton candy, you eat it and it's gone. And sometimes the people who have the most are the people that are farthest from the peace. You will not find peace, either in this life, or in the next, without Jesus of Nazareth. You will not have it. But it also leads, as Ephesians tell, the two tells us it flows downhill, it leads to peace with each other. Why? Because we can't get along. The problem with sin in our own hearts is that we don't like each other. And so we think we're better than other people. As Paul says, that Jew and Gentile have been separated. There's this dividing wall, but Jesus Christ with his cross came and he broke apart the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile. Now there's one people, and so all the classism and the racism and the superiority that you and I feel in our own hearts, it's a native weed. We don't have to help it grow. It's all in our hearts that Jesus Christ with his peace. He breaks up that soil, and he says this, you don't have to compete anymore with people. If you've been reconciled to God, you don't have to be better than people anymore. Oh my goodness, is that liberating? If you've been reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, you have peace with God. You don't have to win anymore. Boy, if that's a message that you need, and I need, that this church needs, that this city needs, the gospel brings peace. Why? Because the promised prince of peace has come into this world. Isn't that good news? It's so great. And some of you may be sitting here today and going, well, of course, who wouldn't want that? Who wouldn't want the prince of peace and who wouldn't want the wonderful council? That's what everybody wants. Christianity is just another invention of another group of people that just want, no one will ever get, because this world's terrible. That may be what you're thinking. Why? Because I've thought that before. Christianity is just another group of fairy tales, but here's what's different. Let's go to our second point. He's so great. He's so near. Good verse six again. For to us, a child is born. To us is not the emphasized part of this passage, but child is. Is there anything nearer or more vulnerable than a baby? That the one that is beyond your wildest dreams, the one that you and I want so bad. Where is he? Is he at the heights of power? Is he someplace that we have to try to reach to attain? You know where he is? He's in a diaper, in a barn, in a feeding trough. He's so near you. The great one has come so near to you into history right there where you can see him. Right there where the lowest of the low can come to him, where the shepherds can come and look at him for crying out loud. They were like pirates. My wife and I, when we had our first child, oh my goodness, no one prepared us. It was a great experience, it was wonderful, but it was quite a pressure. Did you just see this child in the crib and you go like, I hope she stays alive because she's totally dependent upon my wife and me also, but she's dependent upon us completely because there's nothing more vulnerable in the week. Why would he say, for to us a child has been born? Of course he grew up, but it's very important to know the weakness and the loneliness of Jesus being born as a baby. Why? Because the God of all the universe was dependent upon a poor teenage Israelite girl for her, for his very life. Know what that means? He's so near to you, he's so near to you sinner, he's so close to you. I want you just to imagine the sound because this word child not only means infant, but depending on the context, it also means young boy, young child, I want you to imagine the sound of a young boy's voice, a little boy's voice, I love the sound, the high pitch sound of young boys laughing, playing on the playground, I have two brothers, and there's no sweeter sound than that, but just the sound of a little boy's high pitch voice, I want you to imagine that and you can imagine them running around on the playground, just common little kids, I want you to realize this common and as beautiful as that little boy is, I want you to imagine this, there's the wonderful counselor on the playground, the high pitch voice, that's the sound of the mighty God, that's the Prince of Peace. He's just right there, I can touch him, he's right there, he's come into history, the myth has become fact, the hero has come, it's a child that has been born to you, don't look up for Jesus, look down for Jesus, and it's to us, to who to us, now the people that are being addressed here, to us a child is born, this is a shock unto us a child is born, this promised people, they're not good people, they're desperate people just like us, to us a child is born, sinful people, you know what that means to you and to me, you know that idea of to us, I remember seeing my dad on TV once, my dad was on TV maybe once or twice, it wasn't his gift, but I remember seeing him on TV, it was so cool seeing your dad on TV, he's like, look, and so everybody you know you call him up because it's like just a common person's on TV, look at that, how cool is that because we're not on TV, we're not important, we're not famous, but to us, look at this, we're just normal people, and that is what this passage is saying, to you sitting in this pew, to you, to you, to you right where you are though your life seems like a disaster, to us the promise has been given, how does such good news, isn't it? That's so near, how will this happen, Richie? The last line of verse 7 of Isaiah 9, how will this occur? The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this, it's not dependent upon Richie's sessions, or to independent Presbyterian Church, or to you, or to any great person, the reason that you will experience forgiveness of sins in all eternity, the reason you've been adopted into the house of God, the reason you can know the hope of salvation, the reason you can have those things now, and forevermore, the reason you can know that the story of all time ends in paradise for those who are called according to Jesus' purpose is because the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this, why? God wants you,

yeah, you're not secondary to his plan, he wants you, and the zeal of the Lord will do this, I think about someone who is dead set on doing something, I've heard some of your stories about you, how you've asked this girl more than wants to be your wife, right? You're dead set, the zeal that you have for this woman, you will accomplish what you, or most of you did, you hope, but you've ever known someone that's so dead set on something they're so singular in their focus because they have such zeal for something to be accomplished, listen to this, marry Christmas to us folks because the zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish his promises, he's going to do it, so what? It's real simple, unless you live in light of this promise, unless you've taken this promise into the center of who you are and you have faith in this promise, and you live by this promise, not just in your head but in your heart, you'll be a bitter person because this world is mean and it's hard, and you will not understand the story of this world apart from the promise, you'll also grow weary, the only way not to grow weary is that in the midst of your greatest trials the promise is true, and I'll close with what Martin Lloyd Jones says one more time, and this is true for you in your life, that when God sent his son into the world, it is an absolute guarantee that he will do everything that he has ever promised to do. Hey, moms, you look at your little kids and you're like, how am I not going to mess this up? Dads, men in your business, how am I not going to mess this up folks? There's a story that is much bigger than your story and just look with the eyes of faith, Jesus Christ was promised to come the first time and he has promised to come again. Cheer up. It's pray. Lord, we ask that you would sear this message on our hearts and that you would give us the joy of the coming of Christ and you would help us believe your promises. They're so great and they're so near. We thank you so much for loving us. Now send us out with the joy of our salvation in Jesus' name. Amen.